An Army judge has recommended Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Fort Hood psychiatrist charged in a shooting spree at the post last year, should face a court martial and possibly the death penalty.

Just two days after Col. James Pohl closed an Article 32 evidentiary hearing in the case, the Army said Wednesday that Pohl recommended the case be tried as a capital offense due to an unspecified "aggravating factor."

His report now goes to Col. Morgan Lamb, a brigade commander at Fort Hood.

Pohl told commanders the case should be a capital offense because he "found reasonable grounds to believe an aggravating factor exists to authorize capital punishment."

The Army didn't reveal what that factor was, but Colorado Springs, Colo., military attorney Frank Spinner said the presence of multiple murder victims would authorize the death penalty.

Lamb has made no decision on Pohl's recommendations, which the Army and defense attorneys did not release. But retired Army Col. John Galligan, who heads Hasan's defense team and received Pohl's Article 32 report Wednesday, wasn't surprised.

"All along I've told you my belief is the Army is hellbent in trying Maj. Hasan as quickly as they can, and I believe they want to kill him," he said while driving to Bell County Jail, where his client is held, to inform him of the decision.

Galligan said it was unusual for someone of Pohl's stature to act as the investigating officer for the Article 32 hearing, which gathers facts and presents them to higher commanders for a decision on calling a court martial.

Hasan is charged with 13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 specifications of attempted premeditated murder in a Nov. 5, 2009, shooting in a crowded deployment readiness center on Fort Hood.

Witnesses sketched a scene of chaos and desperate efforts to survive after Hasan cried out"Allahu akbar!" and opened fire on soldiers sitting in a packed waiting area.

Galligan, however, has argued the government prevented him from obtaining information that was crucial to making his case in the hearing, which is similar to a civilian grand jury.

"This whole Article 32 was a big media circus for the government. I've told you it held no big surprises," he said. "The big issue, the most surprising part of the Article 32, is that the government, and I use that in the big sense of the word - the U.S. government, not the Army - permitted a case of this significance to go though an Article 32 without having previously disclosed to the defense the materials that I've been asking for over a year. That to me is a big story."